Ayesha Verrall: Labour health spokesperson on the party's bill designed to crack down on tobacco lobbying

Labour's Ayesha Verrall says tobacco's unique harm is why industry links to Government need tighter checks. 

She's put forward a Members' Bill designed to ban any linked people working on tobacco policy. 

Labour hopes it'll have cross-party support.

Verrall says other products, like vaping, don't need such strong restrictions - but tobacco's incredibly deadly.

"It kills half the people that use it - we don't have other products like that. So that's why we need this specific focus on tobacco."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Labor. Labour wants to fight back against what it
says is the tobacco industry's influence over government. A member's
bill in the name of Labour's Aischaverral would ban government
support for the tobacco industry and require full transparency around
tobacco lobbying.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
II.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Cheverral is with me now.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Heyisha, Hey Heather, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
It's good to talk to you now. The headline of
your press release says Labor is launching a member's bill
to stop the government from putting tobacco industry interests ahead
of public health. How would you stop them putting that
ahead of public health?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
The bill says that the government isn't allowed to support
the tobacco industry, and it also has a number of
steps to require that any contact or interaction with the
tobacco industry is transparent. So it's reported, okay.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
And then what happens if it's reported, what do we
do with it?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, a couple of things. Firstly, it means that journalists
like yourself can follow up on those lengths, public size
them and ask questions. New Zealanders should know if there's
been tobacco industry involvement between ministers and officials when particular
proposals are draft up, and that's what the bill does.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
I can do you think a similar approach needs to
be taken with everybody who lobbies or just with the
tobacco guys.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
No, I don't. Tobacco is a uniquely harmful product. It
kills half the people that use it. We don't have
other products like that, So that's why we need this
specific focus on tobacco.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
What about though, the vaping industry.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, the other part of this is New Zealand over
ten years ago signed a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
Because tobacco control around the world, the industry tries and
undermines it. So we haven't even brought into law those
obligations we have under that convention, and that's what this
bill is trying to do.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
But do you know what I mean? Like, I just
wonder if we are making these guys the big bad
guys and then ignoring other things that could be equally harmful,
like vaping for example.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, Look that as time goes on, we've learned more
and more about the harms to do with faping. That
tobacco is the most harmful product that's sold to consumers
in the world. So I think it does need its
own approach to stop our laws being changed for the
tobacco industry when actually we want them to support public health.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
How many people smoke in this country at the moment
I share, Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's I can't tell you the number, but it's six
point one percent. I think six point four percent.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And do you know how many of us of us
suck on those USB sticks and call them vapes?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Not so many, but a growing number, particularly amongst young people.
We saw the rate of youth faping kick up to
about ten percent. Now it's coming down slightly, and I
hope it goes down further.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
You don't think that's smaller. It's smaller than I would
have thought. More of us are vaping than smoking.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It depends which age group you look at.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I believe, I believe it's something. It's still you'll know
more people who vape than smoke, right, that's right? Yaheh
me too, Okay, so do you The only point I'm
trying to make is I just feel like you guys
are weirdly fixated by the tobacco industry and you are
ignoring things that are potentially more problematic and more widespread.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I hope we don't ignore them, and when Labor launches
its health policy, we'll look at all of the opportunities
to prevent ill health. Tobacco and vaping another's okay, but
canash my thought red program tells more people than anything else,
any other product now well at the.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Moment, because we've been smoking it for donkeys years.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
The reason I'm sort of saying this I share is
because I feel like this is a political move. Like
it's not to say that this is without merit, but
it just feels really weirdly political from you guys. You're
just having a crack at Casey Costello here on tobacco,
and so you're doing this when actually, if you really
cared about lobbying and people's health, you should be extending
it to all lobbying maybe or anything that people suck

(03:55):
into their lungs, not just tobacco.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah. Look, I think you're also making a valid, a
valid point. We do need to keep it further, improving
our laws on vaping. We supported the last bill that
Casey Costello put up on vaping because we do think
that's important. But just remember vaping is not yet linked
to death in the way that tobacco is.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Not yet because we haven't been sucking it long in
o FA.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Well, the other day we saw one of the first
studies linking it to chronic lung disease, and I think
that does mean we need to take vaping more seriously
than we have.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Aisha, it's good to talk to you. I really appreciate it.
Thanks mate, look after yourself. As sashiverral Labour's health spokesperson.
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